ABOVE: The remodeled B&O Atlantic with its extra long frame and small water tank pulls two replica cars at the Fair of the Iron Horse pageant in 1927. BELOW: This engraving was published in David Stevenson’s book on Engineering in North America, 1838. It shows the original design of the locomotive where the engineer stands with his back against the front guard rail. AUTHOR’S COLLECTION


PIONEERING LOCOMOTIVES ON THE B&O


Four Little Grasshoppers


BY JOHN H. WHITE, JR.


THE BALTIMORE & OHIO was the first common-carrier railroad to be chartered in the United States, tracing its humble beginnings to 1827. Of course, being first meant pioneering, as the railway industry was in its infancy, with England leading the way forward. After the first few locomotives were imported from across the pond, Ameri- cans were soon designing and building their own. Thus was born the “grasshopper design. The history of these American pio-


neers is both unusually well-document- ed and confused. The early Baltimore & Ohio annual reports as well as the ac- counts of Von Gerstner, David Steven- son and Michel Chevalier are remark-


44 FEBRUARY 2012 • RAILFAN.COM


ably detailed and exact. The misguided renaming and remodeling of grasshop- pers during their long service life, to- gether with blatant misidentifications introduced considerable confusion into the history of these machines. The grasshopper design evolved from


a vertical boiler plan introduced by Phineas Davis in 1831 that employed a vertical cylinder much in the style of a Newcomer beam engine. Davis revised his design by adding a gear drive and counter shaft ahead of the front axle. The walking (or “grasshopper”) beam drove a crank axle placed below the cab deck. It had a very large gear fixed to the center of the crank axle. A smaller diameter gear was fixed at the center of


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